


The Lusitania Variation

by fresne



Category: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Genre: Armenian Genocide, Bechdel Test Pass, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Male Character of Color, Yuletide 2015, Yuletide Treat, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5511002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores in the hope especially of embroiling the United States with Germany…For our part we want the traffic — the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still."</p><p>Ali asked, "Who is Winston Churchill?" </p><p>"A very unhappy man right now." </p><p>What if the Churchill letter had leaked, and how might the Revolt in the desert have turned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lusitania Variation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xenakis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenakis/gifts).



> http://www.rmslusitania.info/controversies/conspiracy-or-foul-up/  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ras_al-Ayn

They had just returned from a raid when a messenger drove fast into their camp. He was English. Aurens and he exchanged loud words. The Englishman drove back the way he'd arrived. He hadn't even been there long enough to water a bush. 

Aurens blinked his wide blue eyes and went to stare out at the wide open desert. 

Ali went to stand with him. He said, "What did he say?" 

In answer Aurens held up a battered copy of the New York Times. He read aloud, "This reporter has just obtained a copy of a letter directly implicating the British government in a plot to embroil America in a purely European conflict. The letter states, 'It is most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores in the hope especially of embroiling the United States with Germany…For our part we want the traffic — the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.' And so on." He opened his hands and the wind caught the paper spinning it in the air. 

Ali caught it. He found the same quote. He asked, "Who is Winston Churchill? What does this mean?" 

"A very unhappy man right now. Particularly since as the New York Times blares to all the world, his plan to send a British ship across the Atlantic with American passengers and no escort, and hope the Germans sank it cannot now have the result that he was hoping for. Other than getting the thing sunk." Aurens looked off into some future that Ali could not see. He smiled. He said, "It means that Mr. Bentley will be packing up his equipment and going home. It means no more food and ammunition from America for the war effort. It means that America won't come in on our side in the war." He laughed. "They could even come in on German side." He tapped his fingers along the hilt of his knife. "The middle of their country is half German anyway." 

Ali didn't need to ask what that meant. He wasn't a fool. Merely throwing his life into a foolish dream. 

"It means," Aurens spat the words out, "that there will be no more supplies from Cairo. No more explosives. No more guns. It means…" he pulled out his pistol and flung it into the sand dunes. He folded into himself as if he were a white rock on the sand. Hands clasped over his head. Feet tucked under him. 

Ali went to get the gun. He would keep it for a while. It was not good for Aurens to have a gun when he was like this. Ali made a sort of tent out of his headdress and a bush. He sat next to Aurens while dust devils whirled across the desert. He sat next to Aurens as men streamed out of the camp. 

Finally, Aurens unfolded. He said, "We can still do it. I can still do it for you." 

It was such a profoundly Aurens thing to say, that Ali laughed. Aurens protested. "No, if we can convince the Americans that this is a separate conflict. A separate theatre. Convince them this is about Arab freedom." 

"Bentley already took his belongings and left. He was so hasty, he left one behind." Ali pointed to where Faraj peered into a camera's eye. 

"Is Auda is still here?" said Aurens. 

Ali pointed to where Auda was shouting. "As you see." 

Aurens brushed the sand from his robes and went to the camp fire. He plucked a sizzling piece of bread in lamb fat from the great plate that was spread over the coals. "It is good to see you." 

Auda snorted. "Your way of seeing good and mine follow different paths." 

Still Auda didn't leave with his men. Ali and his men didn't leave. 

They headed north across the desert. They took the armoured Rolls Royce. 

Auda said, "Camels did not need gasoline to cross the desert." 

Aurens smiled that wild smile of his that was as mad as the eye of a hawk. "We will get gasoline from the Turks." 

They managed somehow. For a month at least, they carried out smaller raids. They were more careful to strip the Turks of their munitions. They avoided locations where orders would come for Aurens to leave. 

One day, they saw a long line of cars churning the sand in the wavering distance where no Turkish convoy should be. 

Aurens said, "We should split up the men. Half will hide on that ridge and half will go around on the other side. We can attack from two points that way." This seemed a mad plan given the number of cars. There had to be at least a thousand men in front of them. 

Ali went with the men up the ridge. Aurens rode on the far side. 

The cars came closer. Their tires churned the desert. It was an incredible find. There was even a truck pulling an oil tank. If it was full, there was enough gasoline to keep the armoured car running for months. If they didn't accidentally blow it up. 

The cars came closer. Ali could see that there were people walking alongside the cars. They were not soldiers. There were women. He could even make out children. 

They came close enough that a woman stood up in the front car and waved a white scarf. "Don't shoot. Don't shoot." She repeated this in French and Persian as well as Arabic. Now that they were closer yet, Ali revised the number of people in the convoy. There were far more than a thousand. There were enough to drink a well in the desert dry. 

At first Auda groaned then he laughed. "It is Al-Khatun!" He rode down the hill kicking dust behind him. Ali went more slowly. 

The line of cars came to a halt as they all met in the desert. 

He heard the Al-Khatun say to Aurens. "Lawrence, I haven't seen you since Cairo. How are you finding the desert?" Al-Khatun wore a wide hat with a white scarf holding it to her head. Her clothes were filthy, as if she'd been crawling through garbage. There was a red slash in the tan sleeve of her shirt. Ali knew a bullet's near miss when he saw one. 

Ali had never seen Al-Khatun. He had only heard stories from King Faisal. She was shorter than he would have expected. Her voice was louder. Her smile was the same as Aurens. He wondered what it was about England that they were all mad. Perhaps it was all the rain. 

He had to wonder if they would even have met in the desert if Aurens had not folded into himself on seeing the American newspaper. They would not have even come in this direction if they had more men. Ali whispered, "Nothing is written, but what we write." He shook his head at the events that had led them to meet in this empty place under the sun. 

Aurens looked at the women and children crammed on the cars and trailing behind them. "Better than you were finding Damascus." 

"Ah, yes," said Al-Khatun. "Well, that is a bit of a story. With the British forces pulling back to the Suez and leaving the Middle Eastern front to the Russians, I found myself with a bit of time on my hands. I heard there was a bit of a bother going on in Ras Al-Ain. As you know from our conversations in Caramesh, I am very familiar with the ruins there. That city has had people living cheek and jowl there for dog's ages. So, I had a little look and we found these lovely people being marched into the desert." 

Auda laughed. "You did not find those cars in the desert." 

"Au Contraire, Auda of the Howeitat, Terror of the Three Pashas, Au Contraire." Al-Khatun waved her white scarf like a flag. 

The woman, who stood in the card in which Al-Khatun stood, in said, "My Lady Bell purchased my sisters and I from the Turks on the streets of Damascus. We convinced Lady Bell to go to Ras Al-Ain. She showed us where to creep through the Roman sewers so we could enter the old fortress where the Turks keep their equipment. We liberated it and those of our people already on their way to their deaths. So, few out of so many." She looked down at her hands. The woman perched on top of the backseat reached through the children clustered in front of her to squeeze her shoulder. 

"Oh, Karine, I'm not a lady." Al-Khatun's face lost its laugh. 

"No more than I am a Lord," said Aurens. His camel shifted restlessly under him, but he quieted her with a soft word. 

Al-Khatun said, "Lawrence, what the Turks were doing in Ras Al-Ain... There are empty desert cisterns and caves filled with Armenian dead. I don't even know how they can look at a woman's body except as a matter of horror after what they've done there." She shook her head. "These women were… very motivated to steal these cars and liberate as many as we could fit in them." 

"They are not hard to drive," said Karine. She sat at the wheel of a rich man's car. It had brilliant blue and gold paint, now gouged with bullet wounds. 

Faraj said, from where he was sitting in their armoured car, "Take that back. They are very hard to drive." 

Ali wanted to yell at the boy. 

But Karine laughed. "Perhaps for a boy. She turned to the woman behind her. "Miriam, he's as pretty as a girl." 

Miriam said, "Prettier." 

Faraj looked ready to jump out of the car. 

A woman at the wheel of the next car in the convoy said, "My Lady, it's not safe here." 

Al-Khatun coughed. She said, "Perhaps, Lawrence, if you could direct us to the nearest well or river, we could continue this conversation in greater comfort. We've been on the run for a trifle and would like to freshen up." Al-Khatun's hand went to her arm. 

Aurens bowed from on top of his camel. "I know just the place. There's an abandoned Crusader fortress, Bethel Asif, not far from here." 

"I thought the well there had gone dry, ah, but you would know. That was your graduate thesis wasn't it? Walking through all of Palestine and taking pictures of each of the Crusader castles." 

Aurens's smile was pink and cracked. "So, it was. There's a cistern there under the castle. It's the size of a cathedral. Plenty of water. You can even swim in it." 

"Sounds lovely." Al-Khatun turned around and pitched her voice to the caravan of cars. "Time to go, Ladies. Lord Aurens and his merry band will be guiding us to a perfectly lovely spot." 

Aurens turned his camel around and gestured to the desert. "This way." They headed south east. The wind was behind them. 

Ali walked his camel alongside the lead car. 

Karine said, "You are a member of the Arab Revolt." 

"Yes," said Ali. It felt strange to talk to a woman. It has been months since Ali had seen his own tribe. 

Miriam pulled a butcher's knife out of her belt. "We are members of the Armenian resistance." 

"Now we are," said Karine. 

Ali said, "You'll need guns for that." 

"I don't know how to shoot," said Karine. 

Ali nodded. "Aurens can get you guns and I can teach you to shoot." 

Aurens voice floated back. "We can do better than that. We have a film camera. We will film you learning to fight and send it to America." He grinned his mad smile at Al-Khatun. "What do you think my Lady?" 

Al-Khatun tapped her chin. "I have friends in New York." 

"You have friends everywhere," said Aurens. 

"Lay on then, Macduff," said Al-Khatun. "To the Crusader castle and what lies beyond." 

Ali patted his camel's neck and could not even imagine what would now be written. He rode towards it with the caravan of cars.

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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